Installing LAMS

Here's a three minute animation that shows how installation works (for LAMS 2.3):

Things you need to know:

Setting Up MySQL Database Access (1/4)

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MySQL directory

Directory where you installed MySQL. It should be detected automatically. If you installed MySQL without the installer, or via a 3rd party package such as EasyPHP or XAMPP, you will need to specify the MySQL directory here.

Root password

Your MySQL root password. If your password is blank, leave empty.

Database name

Name that LAMS will use for its database. Don't change unless you need to.

MySQL Username

Username that LAMS will use to access its database. Don't change unless you need to.

MySQL Password

Password that LAMS will use to access its database. You don't need to remember this, as it is used automatically by LAMS.

Setting Up LAMS (2/4)

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Java JDK directory

Directory where you installed the JDK that you wish to use with LAMS. It should be detected automatically.

Content repository directory

Directory where most of the uploaded files will be installed e.g. the online and offline instruction files, plus any files uploading in the Forum or Submit Files tool.

If the disk drive on which LAMS is installed does not have a lot of free space, then change the content repository to another drive. If you do change the location then you will need to make sure you backup both the normal LAMS directory (usually c:\lams) AND the content repository directory.

Setting Up LAMS (3/4)

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Domain name

The domain name of your LAMS server.

For use on your own PC only you can leave the default value of "localhost".

For production/server use, please change to the domain name of your server. If your server has multiple names, use the one by which users will access LAMS.

Important

You must access LAMS using http://servername:portnumber/lams/. So if you do not get the servername right now, you will need to change it in the database directly later.
Once you have LAMS up and running, you can change the servername if you change the name of the server - but you have to be able to log in with the old name to change it to the new name.

Port

Port that LAMS will run on. Don't change unless you need to.

Important

Note that you need to make sure that there's no other application using the port you entered!

For instance if you have another webserver or application that is currently using that port, then LAMS won't be able to start. If you use Skype note that it might be binding port 80! So shutdown skype before you start LAMS.

Default locale

Choose the default language for your LAMS server.

Setting Up Wildfire Chat Server (4/4)

Attention LAMS v 2.4.1+ users

You not longer require a Jabber server for LAMS version 2.4.1 and later (see details here)

Still having problems?

If you have just run the LAMS 2.0.x updater to upgrade from LAMS 2.0, and you want to go back to a previous version of LAMS, then these manual instruction will tell you how to go back to the backup created by the installer.